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Andhra Pradesh Tops Ease Of Doing Business Rankings

For the second year in a row, Andhra Pradesh has been ranked as the easiest Indian state to do business in, according to a survey.

The Chandrababu Naidu-led state took the pole position in the rankings for Ease of Doing Business that was released by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Delhi today. Neighbouring Telugu state Telangana came second followed by Haryana, Jharkhand and Gujarat. The north-eastern state of Meghalaya was ranked lowest at 36th.

If the performance of the states is an indicator, they’re becoming very competitive, Ramesh Abhishek, secretary for Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, told BloombergQuint, adding that a small point difference separates the top 8-9 states. “The difference between the first- and the second-ranked state is 0.09. It’s as close. I’d like to look at the tremendous work done by the states overall.”

The DIPP in collaboration with the World Bank conducts an annual reform exercise for all states and union territories under the BARP to improve the delivery of various government regulatory functions and services in an efficient, effective and transparent manner.

“Andhra Pradesh was ranked number 1 by getting an overall score of 86.5 percent under user feedback and a combined score of 98.42 percent,” Kutumba Rao, the vice chairman of the planning commission of the Andhra Pradesh government, said. “We’re delighted the investors that have committed to investing and those that have already invested in the state have given such admirable and positive feedback.”

The fast-track implementation of Kia Motors (facility in Anantapur) is an outstanding example of the actual implementation of reforms in Andhra Pradesh.

As many as nine states that have scored above 95 percent are ranked “top achievers”, six states in the 90-95 percent bracket are ranked “achievers” and three in the 80-90 percent bracket are “fast movers”.

A surprising outlier of the survey was the 13th-ranked Maharashtra, which has Mumbai —India’s second-largest city and its financial nerve-centre — as capital.

"I wouldn’t like to comment on individual states. We have seen tremendous work done by the Maharashtra government in the World Bank business report because we closely work with them,” Abhishek said. “But wherever there is scope for improvement… I’m sure the state government would like to improve."